Any new fan that takes any notice of what he says isn't worth having, or paying any attention to. The bloke is a simpleton, it made me laugh how proud he was at himself at his 115 gag. Anyone who counts thought he looked.like an imbecile.
Exactly. he's embarrasing tbh. Those who know don't care and those who care don't know.
Again, the new fans and the audience watching shape the narrative in the future.
As much as we may not care about the new fans or the narrative as old fans, the club does and should care, as it impacts the reputation and thus the prosperity of the club. New fans are vital to being a sustainable business—we will simply not be able to maintain current operations without growing our fan base. There is a reason nearly every club (across the divisions) is running at a financial loss. Without fanbase growth (and, in turn, sponsorship and merchandising revenue growth)—or cash-via-equity injections—the football business is unsustainable. We were one of a handful of professional clubs in England that were in the black last season, and even that was largely because of the total prize money from our historic treble (itself in part based on increased viewership of our games around the world).
As Carragher and others ramp up these veiled attacks, more and more of the broader discourse and perception is influenced toward demeaning and diminishing the club’s achievements and sullying its reputation, which will have long term implications.
This isn’t occurring in a vacuum. The ownership of Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Bayern, Real Madrid, and Barca see that we have begun winning over new fans that would otherwise be theirs, especially in America, one of the biggest markets which contains potential fans with actual disposable income to be won (especially with the mounting economic struggles in Europe and China) and they are doing everything they can to stunt that growth.
These little digs may seem inconsequential, but they really aren’t.
And we may not take them seriously, but the club definitely does and should.
Edit: Probably a better discussion for one of the football finance threads but for those interested in the business implications in the context of the state of football finance in England (particularly in the Premier League), this is a decent very recent article from the BBC.
BBC Sport breaks down the Premier League clubs' £1bn of losses in 11 charts.
www.bbc.com